So, through the graces of Dave and the interest expressed by Eric and a few other unmentionables, we've managed to migrate ~ 7 year old forum software onto a modern platform. I won't say it was a smooth process but that was to be expected given the age of the material, the revisions done to php, and the inability for us to secure any vB updates since the license had expired. (Of course for the low low price of xxx they'll offer you...)

I have to say the XAMPP development team created the backdrop for me to do most of this, being able to grab an old distribution and provide an operating environment that matched the era was a critical necessity in the process. With that being said it appears to have preserved most of the history here, which is what we were after.